Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fiber optic connector, more particularly, relates to a fiber optic connector having a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag.
Description of the Related Art
In a fiber optic communication system, a fiber optic connector is used to perform coupling, distributing or switching among different fibers or pigtail fibers, and each of the fibers or pigtail fibers is coupled to the respective fiber optic connector.
In the prior art, during connecting optical fibers in an optical fiber distribution system, the optical fibers are identified depended on serial numbers on tags adhered to the optical fibers or serial numbers printed on the optical fibers. Also, ports of the fiber optic connector to be connected with the optical fibers are identified depended on serial numbers on tags adhered to the ports or serial numbers printed on the ports. In some conditions, there may be no serial number on the ports, and the ports are identified depended on only the order of arranging them.
Accordingly, in practice, for finishing a connection operation of optical fibers, an operator has to perform the following steps of: firstly, looking up a fiber-port distribution table associated with the fiber optic connector; secondly, visually identifying serial numbers of optical fibers; and finally, looking for the ports of the fiber optic connector corresponding to the optical fibers based on the table and correctly inserting the optical fibers into the respective ports. During each of the above steps, it needs the operator to carefully identifying the serial numbers of the optical fiber and/or the fiber optic connector, causing the vision tiredness of the operator. In a situation, the serial numbers may become blurred or damaged due to the severe application condition and may be illegible for the operator. Also, lighting in the operation field may disadvantageously affect the operator to identify and determine the serial numbers. Furthermore, it is difficult for the operator to find a misconnection of the optical fibers in the field, and the operator cannot find the misconnection in time. Also, the operator encounters the above difficulties again during performing the maintenance for the optical fibers.
An identification device adopting RFID technology, as a wireless communication technology, can identify specific targets and read and write data correlated to the specific targets with wireless communication signals. As a result, it is not necessary to build up a physical electrical or optical connection between the identification device and the specific targets. The RFID contains data electronically stored therein, and the reliable identification distance for the RFID may be up to several meters. The RFID tag is different from a bar code tag because the RFID can be not only provided on a surface of the target to be identified/tracked, but also embedded inside the target to be identified/tracked.
In a fiber distribution management system of the prior art based on the RFID technology, each of fiber optic connectors is mounted with a RFID tag having a unique identification code (ID), and a RFID reader and an electronic lock are provided in a fiber distribution box. Also, the fiber distribution management system further comprises backstage management software and a mobile termination. When it needs to change the connection of any of the fibers, the backstage management software sends a command to the mobile termination carried by the operator, and the operator can find a respective port for the fiber optic connector by means of the mobile termination. As a result, the operator can finish the fiber connection under the guidance of the RFID reader and LED lamps, and any misconnection of the optical fibers can be found in the field in time. With such RFID technology, various optical cables and fibers distributed in the field or the distribution box can be found in time as required, and it can ensure that all operations of the operator on the fibers are correct.
FIG. 1 is a cross section view of a LC fiber optic connector in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1, the fiber optic connector 200 comprises a housing 201 made of plastic material, a tail sleeve 202 mounted in the housing 201 and configured to connect an optical cable (not shown), a holding tube 203 mounted in the housing 201 and configured to hold a fiber of the optical cable therein, a fiber ferrule 204 connected to the housing 201 and extending outside the housing 201, and a spring 25 disposed between the fiber ferrule 204 and the tail sleeve 202. The holding tube 203 also is used to guide a gel filled during assembling the fiber optic connector. Generally, when the RFID tag is mounted on the housing, the readability of the RFID tag is greatly decreased due to the spring 205 and the tail sleeve 202, because the spring 205 and the tail sleeve 202 are made of metal and extend almost over total longitudinal length of the fiber optic connector 200.
In order to avoid the disadvantageous effect of the metal spring 205 and the metal tail sleeve 202 on readability of the RFID tag, there are two kinds of solutions in the prior art. In the first solution, a layer of electromagnetic shield material is added between the tail sleeve 202 and/or the spring 205 and the RFID tag to electromagnetically isolate the RFID tag from the tail sleeve 202 and/or the spring 205. In the second solution, a suitable gap is provided between the tail sleeve 202 and/or the spring 205 and the RFID tag. According to experiment, the disadvantageous effect of the tail sleeve 202 and/or the spring 205 on the RFID tag becomes less as the gap becomes larger. In this solution, in order to obtain a good readability, the gap between the tail sleeve 202 and/or the spring 205 and the RFID tag must be set to be large enough. However, the above solutions both increase the profile size of the fiber optic connector. As a result, the LC type of fiber optic connectors fabricated based on the above solutions lack the advantage of small size of single-fiber optic connectors and cannot be arranged in a high density.